The Thirteenth Man

When Philip Barrimore reached the West Hill he strode along towards the entrance to St. Clement’s Caves and stood bare-headed near the small wooden lighthouse looking down at the Old Town; at the moonlit sea, where the riding lights of the fishing fleet shone like jewels; at the ruby light at the end of the long arm of the unfinished harbor wall. Very peaceful, very lovely it all looked under the moon; but Philip’s heart was full of unrest and resentment. How dared the Colonel!

How could his mother! how could she!

He turned his face in the direction of the ruined castle.

The light from the Sovereign lightship flashed and disappeared.

“The thing is unbelievable! monstrous!” he exclaimed aloud. “How blind I have been!”

Perhaps Philip had been a little selfish as well as blind.

The mother, who was still young, and who, fresh from school, had been married to Philip’s father, a man twenty years her senior, and a hard, unsympathetic barrister, who though strictly honorable, had no affection in his composition; the mother Philip had looked upon as a sort of asset of his own. His father being dead the mother naturally became the property of the son. She had been a dutiful wife. It now remained to her to be a dutiful mother. Philip, whom she loved tenderly, could leave her and take a bungalow; but she had not the right to leave him. Above all, she had no right to entertain the idea of a second marriage. That the mother of a grown-up son should fall in love seemed scarcely decent.

This had been Philip’s idea. He somehow felt that the whole business was a sacrilege. He conceived of his beautiful mother as a permanent pure jewel set in the old home. She was to grow white-haired there. She was to be always there, waiting his own erratic returns.

He had resented her young appearance as “unsuitable.” He had gently but firmly reproved her for wearing hats instead of bonnets; for gowning herself as his sister should have been gowned, if he had had one.

Philip was five-and-twenty, and had the arrogance of that age.

Mrs. Barrimore was forty-two but she looked no more than thirty. And art did not enter into the illusion. Mrs. Barrimore’s smooth, wild-rose complexion was innocent of powder. The entire absence of lines was not due to massage. The masses of wavy nut-brown hair were her own, and no dyer’s art bestowed the rich color. The clear grey eyes had the tender light and brightness of youth.

And Colonel Lane was in love with her! Phyllis—silly, inconsequent Phyllis—had seen it, while he, with his quick insight, had never suspected it till to-night!

He might have known—yes, he certainly ought to have known—that Uncle Robert could not have been the attraction which made Colonel Lane so frequent a visitor at Hawk’s Nest.

He had thought that the mother encouraged the Colonel’s visits, and he put it down to a bit of innocent scheming on her part to bring about a marriage between him and Phyllis. Yes, he had been utterly blind. He felt humiliated.

He felt also virtuous.

Had he not been cheerfully giving up days of his precious time chiefly to please his mother? Had he not gone with her to her precious garden-parties, and on excursions to Rye and Winchelsea? Had he not controlled his impatience with Uncle Robert’s quotations—for nearly a week? Uncle Robert! did he know about this unseemly affair? If he did know, did he approve?

But he, Philip, was the head of the family, not Uncle Robert.

Philip paced backwards and forwards on the hill, till the clocks of All Saints’ and of St. Clement’s struck a duet.

It was midnight.

Philip turned and walked rapidly homewards across the hill, and down the hundred odd steps that brought him into the Queen’s Road, up which he strode towards Hawk’s Nest.

As he expected, the mother was waiting up for him in the dim drawing-room, where now only one lamp was burning, subdued under a pink shade.

He saw her as he came upon the terrace. She heard his step, and came out through the open French window.

“You are late, dearest,” she said a little anxiously.

Her tone softened him. Was ever a voice so tender—even Eweretta’s! Was ever love so great or patience so enduring as this mother’s?

He with his moods, his trying moods, his irritability—but—was she not going to fail him?

“Mother,” he said gently as he drew her hand through his arm, “I have been on the West Hill in a vile temper. Mother, tell me I have been mistaken. I—”

She interrupted him tremulously.

“Dear, I think I understand,” she said. “Have you only just seen it? I will tell you everything, and then, dearest, I will ask you not to refer to it again. Colonel Lane asked me to marry him to-night.”

“And you?” he asked abruptly.

“I refused him.”

“My own mother!” Philip said, drawing her close and kissing her. He found her cheek wet.

“I knew,” she said, with a break in her voice, “that you would not wish it.”

“Is it likely?” he broke out in his masterful way. “You have done with all that sort of thing. It is for girls in their teens, not for mothers of grown-up sons. At your time of life—”

“Philip, am I so very old?” She laughed girlishly through her tears.

How charming was this mother, after all! Philip, looking at her as she stood there in the moonlight, realized that the Colonel could not well be blamed.

Philip loved her dearly though a little selfishly, as we have shown. His next words proved this still more.

“I could not bear it, mother—to lose you. I have always been first in your heart, and now, I have only you in all the world!”

Mrs. Barrimore’s love and pity rose at these words, in such a flood to her tender heart, that she was glad even, that she had to-night made a sacrifice for her boy’s sake. To her, it had been sweet to dwell for even half an hour in the paradise, the door of which was now closed against her. Being a woman, and a loving woman, she had longed for love such as other women had, and which she had never known till to-night, when the grizzled soldier had spoken.

She might well have reminded Philip that he had twice dethroned her in his affections. First for Eweretta and secondly for his work.

Being what she was, she held her peace.

But Colonel Lane had his own views. He was what Phyllis called very “grumpy” on the way home, and when she mentioned Philip, had said:

“There is a good deal too much of Philip at Hawk’s Nest.”

Whereupon Phyllis the “cute” drew her own conclusions.

Next morning, when Uncle Robert came in from his swim, Philip opened fire at once on him.

“I say, uncle, did you know anything about this affair with Colonel Lane?”

“Eh! What!” ejaculated Uncle Robert, removing a towel from his neck and staring at his nephew.

“Colonel Lane proposed to mother last night,” snapped Philip.

“Oh, he did, did he?” said Uncle Robert, pouncing upon the coffee-pot. “Shows his good taste.”

“Uncle!”

“Well, doesn’t it?”

“It shows his impertinence.”

“Can’t agree with you.”

“But it is preposterous at mother’s age!”

Uncle Robert burst out laughing.

“Your mother is young enough to have another family yet!”

Philip got up and stamped about the floor, his hands deep in his trouser pockets, his masterful chin in the air.

“Young man,” said Uncle Robert, “you were born when your mother was about seventeen. She has devoted herself to you for twenty-five years. Let someone else have a show in.”

There is no knowing what Philip would have replied to this, for at the moment both Mrs. Barrimore and Dan appeared, so of necessity the subject dropped.

But Philip, albeit still angry with Colonel Lane, was very tender to his pretty mother, placing her chair for her, and embracing her with extra warmth.

She had refused to marry the Colonel, and he chose to show his approval.

But the pretty pink color was absent from her cheeks, and dark rims surrounded the grey eyes.